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2026: The Rise of The Bad Future and Europe’s New Mandate to Lead
The idea of an American Future as a global reference point no longer exists. Instead, a new reality is emerging: The Bad Future, defined by power and might over purpose, technology over humanity, and transactions over trust & cooperation - paradoxically embodied by the 'leader of the free world'.
In 2026, Europe must 'take back tomorrow'!
Update: Read more, download the pdf, videos etc on my blog. New: Spanish version.

20:16

YouTube

How the U.S. has lost the plot on The Good Future, and why Europe needs to #takebacktomorrow today

This presentation is an excerpt from a recent online event I did with @LondonFuturists see https://youtu.be/0WgaL3QKCDo?si=0P6D_SwWYIm4QEDv for the entire show (a must watch!) In this hard-hitting presentation I reflect on the shifts in global futures over the 2 years, emphasizing the emergence of what I call 'the bad future' see www.thebadfuture.com for more details - it's the antidote to my core theme of #thegoodfuture :) I speak about key challenges such as the rapid and painful degradat

08:37

YouTube

The Good Future or the Bad Future? Europe must take a stand - Fight for The Good Future

In this hard-hitting new video, I start with the assertion that #thegoodfuture will no longer come from the United States. It is heart-wrenching to observe that the U.S. is rapidly shifting toward what can only be called “the bad future”: power and might over purpose and collective benefit, reckless techno-optimism and greed fuelling a dangerous AI arms-race, and transactional, brute-force diplomacy over trust and collaboration. I see a strong connection between America's political decline int

The Choice before us: Good Future or Bad Future?
Since 2016, the core idea of my work as a Futurist, Keynote Speaker, Author and Film-Maker has been The Good Future. For a long time, The Good Future was more than a concept — it was a vision grounded in human values, collaboration, science and technology that sought to amplify flourishing for everyone. For a while, it seemed that this future might be anchored in the United States: the birthplace of the internet, early social networks, Silicon Valley and the Bay Area, and many of today’s foundational technologies.
But those days are gone. Since early 2025, the promise of The Good Future has been under intense pressure — not because technology has failed, but because political and economic leadership has. Governance that prioritizes short-term gain over long-term purpose is eroding trust in institutions and weakening the global economic order.
How did we get here - The Bad Future, made in the USA?
Democracy Systematically Eroded
and International Relations reduced to posturing and deal-making
Important Institutions Ridiculed and Weakened
starting with USAID and the UNITED NATIONS (UNICEF, ICC…)
Cooperation and Diplomacy Reframed as Useless
Multilateralism and global cooperation … no longer needed!
Truth is Optional, Control Beats Trust
The truth is whatever The Don says it is (or what his AI generates?)
In 2025, when warning signs multiplied — autocratic behavior rising, AI misuse spreading, climate disasters accelerating, technological job displacement surfacing — we labeled them temporary. Or exaggerated. Or someone else's problem. Dystopian stories became background noise, stripped of urgency, often repackaged as entertainment (thanks to TikTok and YouTube, and X) - just watch the latest Hollywood releases riffing off the most urgent real-life problems as if their purpose was to generate Netflix shows.
DO WE REALLY WANT THE GOOD FUTURE
TO BE CANCELLED?
Technology Didn’t Fail — We Did
AI hasn’t turned “evil” … It has become normal. AI was adopted faster than the internet itself but without commensurate ethics, culture, or safeguards. Convenience has been sold as progress, personalization as insight, and automation as liberation — all while we quietly relinquish effort, judgment, responsibility, and the process of creative friction.
AI is automating creativity
AI is simulating Empathy
Data is absorbing Morality
Organisms are Algorithms!
AI is becoming a powerful geopolitical accelerant, and AGI will be our last invention
With the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022, we entered the Intelligence Revolution — yet we keep defining success based on 20th-century metrics. In 2025, technology followed geopolitics. Instead of shared governance, guardrails and collective progress, we got more digital empires — and unaccountable AI billionaires running $4 Trillion tech companies. The Internet as we knew it is being absorbed by AI. We’re shrinking human experience into something machines can easily parse, while human complexity is derided as inefficiency. When humans behave like machines, machines don't just take their jobs. They redefine their values — and then they become 'digital humans'
The U.S.
Pursues AI dominance at all costs
Europe
Hesitates, regulates and lags
China
Scales state control with digital infrastructure
The result of AGI will not be mass unemployment - it will be mass diminishment, the destruction of purpose & identity.
We have all the science and the tools - but we don't have the telos (the purpose, the right direction, the wisdom)
The Bad Future will result from our failure to adopt a new economic logic that is fit for the future
In 2025, the United States doubled down on a system that was already failing:
Growth stayed sacred.
GDP stayed king.
Short-term profit stayed untouchable.
Purpose was dismissed as "soft."
Ethics were derided as "unscalable."
Wisdom was considered "inefficient."
When profit, growth and power remain the only goal, People become resources to be 'fracked' and mined, Nature becomes a mere input variable (extraction instead of creation), Politics are reduced to showmanship and deal-making, Power replaces responsibility and might makes right.
The results are worrisome:
Climate Solutions Are Ignored
Climate solutions exist — but are ignored, delayed, or deliberately slowed
Inequality Is Widening
Because efficiency beats dignity, and zero-sum thinking determines policies
Fear Is Replacing Purpose
Especially for Gen Y and Z - Having kids in this future is becoming unthinkable.
And finally: The Bad Future, Personified!
The Bad Future didn't arrive on tanks or with missiles, or through SkyNet. It arrived through utter ignorance, posturing, coercion, bullying and scheming — Embodied by the Commander in Chief of "The War Department" of the United States.
Under (t)his logic…
The future is owned, not shared
Alliances and partnerships are for weaklings
Values are nothing but bargaining chips
Truth is whatever works best, at the moment
Power is performative, absolute, zero-sum
In 2025, treaties were mocked, institutions weakened, the UN systematically gutted, multilateralism presented as a joke. Democracy lost its narrative. War has become thinkable again. The signal to the world is this, and it's horrifying: If the most powerful democracy in the world can discard rules, laws and order — why shouldn't everyone else?
Why and how Europe must take the lead in 2026
The Good Future doesn’t vanish in times of crisis. It evolves. What has changed is not the need for it, but where it can be credibly built. It is no longer shaped by what happens in a visibly dysfunctional United States—and this assessment goes far beyond any single administration. The Good Future will not be made in the USA. It will emerge everywhere else, but its moral center must be Europe, working alongside its partners—including the BRICS countries, Canada, Africa, South Korea, Australia/New Zealand,, and specifically the progressive South-American leaders, as well!
The Bad Future is not inevitable. It is optional. Pessimism didn’t protect us. Optimism without action wasn’t enough - I should know! And neutrality enabled the worst outcomes. We didn’t resist. We didn’t decide. We simply clicked “Accept.”
Europe must now disengage from the U.S. trajectory toward the Bad Future. Not quietly—but deliberately, visibly, and unapologetically. Europe must resist it, reject it, and stop supporting, promoting, or financing those who advance it. This is the moment to reclaim human agency, restore purpose, and lead—not by dominance, but by values.
5 Ways Europe Can Take Back Tomorrow
01
Make Human-Centered AI a Strategic Advantage
Europe must treat human agency, accountability, and dignity as design requirements—not optional features. AI should enhance human judgment, not replace it. Regulation alone is not leadership; direction is.
02
Build technological sovereignty without isolation
Europe must secure its technological foundations - data, energy, chips, cloud, and AI -while remaining open to cooperation. Strategic autonomy is not digital nationalism; it is resilience with partners.
03
Invest in humans, not just automation
Bolster human-only traits, focus on future-fit education, lifelong learning and a renewed emphasis on human-only creativity. The future belongs to societies that grow their androrithms, not just their algorithms.
04
Lead a New, Global Alliance of Trust (U.S. independent)
Europe can convene a coalition of democracies, partners and emerging economies around shared rules and goals. The EU may want to consider a boycott of the U.S. (see South Africa in the 1980s) - if the current trend continues. In a fractured world, trust becomes the new global currency.
05
Redefine Success Beyond GDP Growth: Embrace the 5Ps
Europe must lead by measuring what actually matters: well-being, resilience, trust, ecological stability, and human capability — not just growth at any cost. It's time to create new stock markets based on People, Planet, Purpose, Peace and Prosperity!
This is not idealism - It's a survival strategy. Because if Europe doesn't do it — no one will.
Take back tomorrow!
Context, News and Resources and Events (always updated)T

Axios

Anthropic to take Trump's Pentagon to court over AI dispute

The AI company is doing what few others have: publicly challenging the administration.

Protect What's Human.

Protect What’s Human.

AI designed to replace people threatens our jobs, our families, and our way of life.

Disconnect

Sam Altman’s anti-human worldview

OpenAI CEO downgrades humanity in pursuit of goal to merge with computers

Twitter

Rutger Bregman on Twitter / X

One of the most effective things you can do right now to fight Trump and ICE is to cancel your ChatGPT subscription. pic.twitter.com/3z5NLJi8r4— Rutger Bregman (@rcbregman) February 4, 2026

Project Syndicate

Will Democracy Govern Capitalism - or Be Consumed by It?

Joseph E. Stiglitz & Jayati Ghosh urge the rest of the world to salvage a global tax convention that the United States wants to derail.

archive.ph

Something big is happening in AI — and most people will be blindsided…

archived 15 Feb 2026 13:15:50 UTC

20:16

YouTube

How the U.S. has lost the plot on The Good Future, and why Europe needs to #takebacktomorrow today

This presentation is an excerpt from a recent online event I did with @LondonFuturists see https://youtu.be/0WgaL3QKCDo?si=0P6D_SwWYIm4QEDv for the entire show (a must watch!) In this hard-hitting presentation I reflect on the shifts in global futures over the 2 years, emphasizing the emergence of what I call 'the bad future' see www.thebadfuture.com for more details - it's the antidote to my core theme of #thegoodfuture :) I speak about key challenges such as the rapid and painful degradat

01:27:11

YouTube

Geopolitics, AI and The Good Future: Why Europe must Take Back Tomorrow (complete event recording)

This is an edited version of my recent guest appearance on the @LondonFuturists video podcast, see https://youtu.be/0WgaL3QKCDo?si=4GI5spqAoTKGKQVI, with @David_W_Wood and @liselottelyngsofuturist Take Back Tomorrow: Addressing Existential Risks and Building a Better Future In this enlightening episode, David Wood chairs a thought-provoking discussion with renowned futurists Gerd Leonhard and Liselotte Lyngsø, focusing on the urgent themes of 'The Bad Future' , and #takingbacktomorrow T

10:05

YouTube

Sanchez Goes Nuclear On Cam: 'Migrant' Musk Attacked As Spanish Declares Social Media 'Failed State'

Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has ignited a global debate after launching a fierce attack on social media giants at the World Governments Summit in Dubai. Calling social platforms a “failed state,” he accused them of spreading disinformation, hate speech, and harmful content targeting children. Sanchez also took direct aim at Elon Musk amid a row over migrant regularisation and online influence. Now, Spain is moving toward tough new rules, including age bans and criminal liability for exe

06:44

YouTube

2026: The rise of The Bad Future, Europe's Mandate to Take Back Tomorrow

This video was created with the help of the amazing NotebookLM. The script was edited by me and the audio / voice-over was re-recorded live. I hope you like this experiment - please comment below! For the past 10 years, I've talked about #thegoodfuture Today I need speak about #thebadfuture, as well The U.S. once epitomized the good future - but that is over. We now face two paths: a 'good future' prioritizing humanity, purpose, and trust, versus a 'bad future' dominated by exponential techn

09:33

YouTube

Fareed's Take: The real threat to Western civilization

CNN's Fareed Zakaria breaks down how the second Trump administration is threatening the Western order, and explores how the rest of the world views the Trump administration. 0:00 Unbounded state power in America? 1:44 The Trump administration has declared war on civil society 3:28 The Trump administration is expanding state power within the economy 4:04 How the Trump administration is targeting dissidents 5:57 How the world views Trump 2.0: Discussion with Economist editor-in-chief and NYT opin

open.substack.com

The lines have been drawn

Silicon Valley must decide which side it's on

Financial Times

Humans vs bots

We are seeing how disruptive technology can be, especially in the short term

21:15

YouTube

“An Abomination”: Yanis Varoufakis on Trump’s “Board of Peace” & Threat to Democratic World Order

Support our work: https://democracynow.org/donate/sm-desc-yt We speak to Greek economist Yanis Varoufakis about the United States under Donald Trump and its attempts to reshape the post-World War II international consensus. “Trump has all his work done for him by placid European centrists who went along with the policy of trashing international law and creating the circumstances for him to create his private company and say, 'Right, I'm taking over the world,’” laments Varoufakis as he draws a

WIRED

We Are Witnessing the Self-Immolation of a Superpower

With Donald Trump’s actions in Greenland, Minneapolis, and Venezuela, a foreign enemy could not invent a better chain of events to wreck the standing of the United States.

The New York Times

Opinion | The American Threat: Three Words I Never Imagined Typing

We don’t want our children patrolling hostile streets in Greenland or Canada any more than in Iraq and Afghanistan.

32:30

YouTube

Davos LIVE: Canadian PM Mark Carney speaks at World Economic Forum

Watch live as Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney delivers a special address at the 2026 World Economic Forum in Davos. Follow live updates: https://bit.ly/4r2zTbJ

The Rupture

06:17

The Rise of the Bad Future and Europe's Mandate to Lead (Gerd Leonhard's NotebookLM super-cut)

Trump’s Letter to Norway Should Be the Last Straw

Stop Normalizing Fascism

23:08

YouTube

Taking Back Tomorrow: Power, AI, and the Future of Humanity: Powerful Keynote #futuristgerd

Thanks to @elpais for inviting me -- this was a great event, see https://futuristgerd.com/elpais for more details NEW: Spanish Overdub using @Rask_ai https://youtu.be/y1FWXWdlskY?si=LrXtcFkqd2TGrJsj NEW: Italian AI Overdub via @Descript https://youtu.be/xvg1MyJf2x0?si=4Lj2XnsVEZ6zMU7W We’re standing at a historic pivot point where mind-boggling scientific breakthroughs collide with geopolitical chaos, and autocratic tendencies. We are facing a tough fork in the road: a future of unlimited cl

47:29

YouTube

The Good Future: Balancing Humanity and Technology, HI and AI

This is an edited recording of my keynote at the AmCham Bulgaria Vision 2050 event in Sofia, on Nov 6, 2025, see https://amcham.bg/events/amcham-bulgaria-30th-anniversary-business-forum/ A big thank-you to@amchambulgaria2697 for inviting me. You can download the slides via https://amcham.bg/2025/11/09/amcham-bg-30-years-vision-2050-forum-overview/ ! The next 10 years will bring more change than the last 100. Nuclear fusion, renewable energy, AI that can learn and “think,” genetic engineering,

35:28

YouTube

An Honest Conversation on AI and Humanity | World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2026

What choices must we make today to build a future balanced between technological innovation and humanity? Explore and discuss how a history of the future offers lessons for navigating the transformative age of AI. Speakers: Yuval Noah Harari, Irene Tracey The 56th Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum will provide a crucial space to focus on the fundamental principles driving trust, including transparency, consistency and accountability. This Annual Meeting will welcome over 100 governm

25:39

YouTube

Are we living through the fall of civilisation? | The Reith Lectures 2025

In the first of four 2025 BBC Reith Lectures titled 'A Time of Monsters', the Dutch historian Rutger Bregman asks what can be done to counter the moral decay of today's un-serious elites. After the lecture, click on the below links to listen to the full episode and hear audiences questioning Rutger Bregman and interrogating his views. BBC Sounds: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002mmrv Outside the UK? Listen on BBC.com You can hear more discussion about the issues raised in the 2025 Reit

37:03

YouTube

Protopia: Building The Good Future: Yes we can! Futurist Gerd Leonhard's powerful online keynote

The future is not written—it’s a choice. In this talk, I explore why #thegoodfuture is entirely possible and how we can build it—step by step, painfully, but surely. #protopia not dystopia @KevinKelly From solving climate change to wrestling with the rise of artificial intelligence, the next ten years will bring more change than the last 100 years. Will we let technology dictate our destiny, or will we use wisdom, ethics, Telos, and collaboration to shape a future worth living in? We’re standi

thehumanresistance.net

WELCOME TO THE HUMAN RESISTANCE:

TOO MUCH AI IS BAD FOR HUMANS When AI becomes the master, humans will become the tool. When AI evolves into AGI/ASI, we will become the 2nd most intelligent species. AGI is an existential threat. In an age where artificial intelligence is accelerating beyond our wildest imagination and digital con